Too much worry over taxing 'juice drinks and soda'

This Candorville cartoon reminds me of something that has been bugging me for awhile:

The commercial referenced in the cartoon is from an organization fighting back against proposed taxes on juice drinks and soft drinks. The organization has the innocuous name of Americans Against Food Taxes. But there is still a debate as to whether juice drinks and soft drinks count as "food."

Let's be blunt: AAFT is an organization of beverage producers that wants people to buy its "drinks." Now, you see the word "juice" in juice drinks, but don't be fooled. These are not 100% juice or anything even close to that. They consist of water, high fructose corn syrup (almost exclusively), and eventually juice. They are sold right next to real juice and the labels are meant to deceive.

The commercials have the fake mom being concerned about having to pay a few pennies more for juice drinks and soft drinks. We are literally talking about pennies.

And juice drinks, in trying to accomplish something at the dinner table, are rather expensive. If you made your own juice drink — since after all, real juice isn't being taxed extra, sugar is inexpensive, water is free — you would come out ahead financially. And if you created a juice drink that was, for example, 50% juice and 50% water, you save even more since you don't add sugar.

But as Lemont in Candorville put it so well, "get your fat kids some water."

Oh, and to the companies behind the ads who are complaining about a proposed tax, maybe we should stop the government from subsidizing the high-fructose corn syrup in your products, so your products more accurately reflect their true cost. We'd get more of that than any proposed tax.

Comments

[Anonymous]

I like better the freshly squeeze fruit juices because of its preserve nutrients of the fruit directly to your glass.